April 23, 2005
Daily Courier
Earth Day event focuses on water quality projects
By Judy Kroeger
Daily Courier
"We're here to raise awareness of the environmental work going on in the county," said Brian Chalfant, of Uniontown's Greater Redstone Clearwater Initiative and co-organizer of Fayette County Earth Day 2005.
JUDY KROEGER/DAILY COURIER
Given the number of watercourses in Fayette County, water projects dominated the event, held at Hutchinson Park in South Union Township.
Members of the Mountain Watershed Association and the Jacobs Creek Watershed Association discussed their work with abandoned mine reclamation and other water quality initiatives.
Roy Giovanelli, of Perryopolis, is a member of Trout Unlimited and is an Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement volunteer. The EASI is a program sponsored by the Department of Environmental Protection and funded by Growing Greener.
"Seniors (and) people who have time go out and sample stream water and report it to a database," Giovanelli said.
So far, the group has performed extensive sampling of Maple Creek and Pidgeon Creek and may begin sampling Redstone Creek, which has been damaged extensively from acid mine runoff.
"We want to find evidence of damage and track it," Giovanelli said.
"We're concerned about preserving and restoring watersheds of Fayette County," said Dale Kotowski, of Greene County, president of the Chestnut Ridge chapter of Trout Unlimited. The group has installed limestone settling ponds to restore a healthy pH balance to acidic streams.
The work seems to be paying off.
Through a Growing Greener grant, the group restored a local waterway.
"We just completed a project on Glade Run, a tributary of Dunbar Creek, that drains into the Youghiogheny River near Connellsville. Seven years ago there were no fish there, no insects. The water was completely dead. The four-year project of reclaiming the stream from acid mine runoff is complete, and new trout are reproducing naturally. We primarily want to see watershed improvement."
At Deer Lake, the Deer Lake Association has taken a creative approach to managing plant overgrowth, said Joe Shostell, a professor of biology at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus. They have introduced triploid carp, which eat the plants.
"We're seeing if they have an impact," Shostell said, adding that the biology department has also recently purchased a boat and will start research on the Youghiogheny River to determine what types of insects, fish and other species are staying and which are leaving, a good indication of a waterway's health.
Other groups that participated in Earth Day included PA CleanWays of Fayette County, the Fayette County Conservation District, Christian W. Klay Winery, Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, McMillen Engineering and Dunbar Motors, which brought a hybrid gas-electric Honda Accord.
"There are a lot of people interested in and working on improving our environment," Chalfant said.
